I am not a pacifist and can be happily blood-thirsty if the occasion demands it. However, I think we are mistaken in seeing Kashmir as one such subject.
Regardless of Pakistan's support or JEM, it is important to understand that the suicide bomber was a Kashmiri. All the support in the world can't make someone give up their life unless they think it is futile to begin with.
THIS is the crux of the Kashmir problem. One I am disappointed that a country with a freedom struggle so close in her past is unable to recognize.
We cannot invite love with slaps. If you were to court someone to marry you, you wouldn't kick them and ask them to tell you they love you or else. Yet this is what we seem to be doing over and over with Kashmir. There is an entire generation come to adulthood who see armed violence as NORMAL. They don't even have an experience of what it is like to never have seen a gun up close - which is the reality of most Indians not in security careers outside Kashmir.
We are so fast to take outrage if someone insults our parents or lays a hand on our sister. For them this is normal. Even without abuse, they can be searched on whim. They have no autonomy over their own body. Pause to think of this a bit.
Suicides are high. A suicide bombing is just one way of doing it. A lashing out.
Violent choices must be seen in this context. We have contributed to a world where this is NORMAL for them. The only difference is whether they obey another or do as they wish. School kids are throwing angry stones at forces. The same forces that come to their rescue in avalanches. More than hate, this is the frustration of living in a cage. Of being poked by random strangers on whim. Of being impotent to protect your loved ones, from "protectors" or random violence.
What we need to "avenge" the dead CRPF jawans is to defeat this. Not defeat suicidal kids, but defeat what makes them suicidal.
This government is all about a land grab. It HATES Kashmiris, but wants the land. This government is not going to be able to do it. But governments change. A country endures. We, as citizens too have tremendous power to include and love. The day we feel angry when a Kashmiri teenager who can't go out because of curfew is also denied 4G, that teenager feels like we understand his hardship. We may not be in Kashmir, but we have voices and we can speak up for them. We can care. We can feel the same outrage over blinded kids that we do over bombed soldiers. Because both of them are ours.
Even calls for Azadi can be defeated if they want to be a part of India. Where they feel included in our identity. Have we even done that that we blame them and hate them for feeling isolated and lashing out in the few ways they can?
And we can stop being so freaking pliant and question lapses. Propaganda can't create security. Secure protocols, oversight, good equipment, addressing problems, funding, accountability, training, recruitments, support for jawans suffering PTSD.... all that is needed. We can avenge the dead CRPF jawans by ensuring that unnecessary threats to their lives are defeated.
And sure, if as a part of proper security we have information about Pakistan and terror groups, we address that too. Not with hate, but firmness. To protect Kashmir and Kashmiris, not to strangle them.
V
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